"Hey, Grandma?"

"Hmm?"

"Do Genovians do anything for Valentine's Day?"

The queen was going over the seating arrangements for an upcoming state dinner that Charlotte had handed over for approval. Her granddaughter's question circled the outskirts of her concentration, and her reply was a bit distracted.

"Oh, I suppose. Though it's likely a bigger deal in America."

"Do you do anything for Valentine's Day, Grandma?"

While she was getting better at it, Mia had yet to master the art of subtlety, and her not so well-hidden meaning cut through the last strongholds of Clarisse's focus. She gave Mia a quick glance from the corner of her eye.

"Oh, not really."

"So what you're saying is, you don't have a valentine."

Clarisse didn't have to look up; she could hear her granddaughter's smirk. With a sigh, she set aside her reading glasses and sat back in her chair.

"You know, someday, you will be sitting here, and whether you are proofreading a draft for a trade agreement or approving seating arrangements for dull political functions, you will come to realize how nice it is to do those things with a minimum of distractions."

"I'm sure I will, but you didn't really answer my question."

"I wasn't aware you had actually asked one."

"Point taken. Let me rephrase. Do you have a valentine, Grandma?"

"Do you have a valentine, Mia?"

"Grandma!"

Clarisse suppressed a smile. It always amused her that she could be just as frustrating to her granddaughter as Mia could be to her.

"I don't have a valentine," Clarisse assured her.

"Neither do I."

"Then why all the fuss?"

Mia shrugged. "I don't know. I just like holidays. Hey," she said, abandoning for the moment her fishing expedition. "Let's do something for it."

"What does one do for Valentine's Day when one does not have a valentine?"

"Watch cheesy romantic comedies and eat ice cream?"

"As much as that sounds right up your grandmother's alley," a husky voice interrupted, "she already has plans. You may not have her for Valentine's Day."

Mia's face brightened at the arrival of their head of security, then just as quickly dissolved into mischief. "Oh, really?" she drawled suspiciously. "Grandma, I thought you said you didn't have a valentine."

"I don't," she reaffirmed airily, casting a tiny frown toward Joseph as he strode into the room. "But that doesn't mean I don't have plans."

"Romantic plans?"

"Of course not."

"Not even a teensy bit romantic? Dinner? Movie? Bottle of wine?"

"No movies. No ice cream. No wine. Just whiskey," Joseph explained cryptically.

"Whiskey? That's not romantic!" Mia eyed him warily. "Not very Grandma either, for that matter."

"Who said anything about romance?" Clarisse asked.

Mia shifted her eyes back and forth between the two, trying to decipher their silent conversation. All she could gather was that Clarisse looked irritated while Joseph looked amused. As desperately as she wanted to push the issue, even she knew when to let up.

"Well, I would like to have plans for myself. I wish Lily were here," she mused. "She's great fun when we're both dateless on Valentine's Day. Maybe I'll talk to Charlotte. She can give me the number of a florist so I can send myself some roses."

"A capital idea," Joseph agreed. "In the meantime, I have important matters to discuss with the Queen."

Unable to resist one final push, Mia asked, "Should I be here for that?"

"No."

"Ah. Okay, I'm off." She closed the door behind her, pausing long enough to throw a theatrical wink at her grandmother and to receive a royal eye roll for her sassiness.

Clarisse stood up and walked toward Joseph.

"Are we safe?" he asked, taking her hands in his and drawing her to him.

"I doubt it." He laughed quietly as she leaned in for a kiss anyway. "But I'm getting too old to care."

"Now you've got the right attitude."

"You have to stop encouraging her. She hardly needs it, anyway."

"Why? What did I miss?"

"Still just trying to trip me up. She desperately wants me to confess my love for you to her."

"As long as you confess it to me, that's all I care about."

"Only if you stop goading her."

"Alright," he whispered pulling her closer still. "No goading. Will you kiss me properly now?"

Without waiting for a response, he pressed his lips to hers and felt all the tension of the day, the burden of their secret, even – briefly – the weight of the Crown, dissipate as they melted in each other's arms. A stolen moment of solitude such as this was a luxury, a rare occurrence in the middle of the afternoon for two ridiculously busy people.

Reluctantly, Clarisse pulled back, but only slightly. "I take it you've bought the whiskey then?"

"I have," he said, resting his forehead against hers. He slipped his hands beneath her suit jacket and moved them up her back as far as the buttoned garment allowed. She closed her eyes and relaxed further into their embrace. "We must observe tradition, after all."

She smiled, but he thought it looked a little sad. He decided to wait for her to share in her own time, and while he waited, he brushed his mouth along her jawline toward her ear.

"So close, Joseph."

"So close to what?" he murmured.

"Mia."

He understood the significance of her one-word answer, how it encompassed all their hopes, but all their fears, too. "She will be ready."

"I know, but sometimes the closer we get…"

"Soon," he reassured her. "The time will come, and we'll know it when it arrives."

"Sometimes I worry it won't be here soon enough."

He smiled into the little hollow under her ear and behind her jaw. "Are you going somewhere before she becomes queen?"

"No. I don't know." Her voice dropped to a whisper, as though she were afraid to voice her morbid concerns aloud. "We're only getting older, Joseph."

He placed one more kiss in that spot, which he really liked and had every intention of returning to as soon as possible, before looking her straight in the eye. "I told you once a long time ago you would never have to worry about spending Valentine's Day alone again. Don't you remember? And you promised me the same."

"I do seem to recall making promises to each other that one of us will someday break."

"I won't break it," he said quietly, his vow reverberating with unassailable assurance.

She studied him for a few moments. "Somehow, I believe you."

"As well you should."

Her eyes shone with a myriad anxieties, and he longed to kiss every one of them away. "Do you think she'll ever have this?"

"I don't know," he replied honestly.

"So many things beyond our control, it's rather unfair. She deserves this, and shouldn't have to wait a lifetime for it."

"There's no reason to think it's beyond her."

"Oh, there are reasons…" He raised his eyebrows in question, but was given only a weighty silence, and he knew her answer would come another time. So he decided to begin steering the conversation in a more cheerful direction.

"Shall I wish for her the same thing you have for yourself?"

Clarisse nodded.

"Then I hope she finds someone who irritates her." Joseph watched as Clarisse began to smile, to release the hold on her melancholy thoughts. "I hope he's grumpy and has a temper; that he's every bit as stubborn as she is; that he causes her a great deal of trouble; and that he loves her in the most inconvenient ways possible."

She laughed. "That about sums us up, doesn't it?"

"Yes. You, uh, wouldn't, by chance, be thinking that we should be any other way?"

"The thought never crossed my mind."

"Good. And now, my Queen, I have lingered too long." He held her gaze tenderly as he kissed her hand, then turned it over to kiss her palm. "I must go."

She watched him take a few steps away from her, but suddenly the distance was too much to bear. "No."

He turned, and his expression was one of genuine surprise. "Clarisse?"

"Is it terribly urgent?"

"Just some things I have to wrap up before the day is over."

"Is Shades in the hub?"

"He is."

Clarisse picked up the phone and called the security hub; after a few moments, she spoke into the receiver.

"Is Shades available? Thank you so much." She covered the receiver with her hand and looked at Joseph. "Is it wrong to admit I like to hear them scramble?" she asked quietly, a light sparking in her eyes. He chuckled as she returned her attention to the phone when Shades spoke in her ear. "I require some advice from my head of security regarding the arrangements for our overnight guests next week. Is there any chance you could take over for him for – oh, say, a half hour?" She glanced at Joseph, who frowned. "Perhaps forty-five minutes?" He pointed his thumb up, indicating she should increase the time frame by another increment, but she narrowed her eyes and shook her head, trying to hear Shades's response. "Perfect. Thank you so much."

"You know, no one buys that," Joseph told her once the receiver was safely cradled.

"It's not a lie," she pointed out, taking his proffered arm as they moved slowly toward the door.

"No?"

"We will be walking through the guest wing, discussing security matters ahead of the state dinner."

"Mm-hmm."

"Just because we might happen to tarry in one of the rooms for a bit –"

"Your plan has one flaw."

"I didn't arrange for an hour?"

"Two flaws."

"An hour would be pushing it. Then no one would buy it."

"We still have to get past Mia. I can hear her chattering away out there with Charlotte."

"She is immersed in planning for Valentine's Day. She will no doubt prefer her task to ours."

They stopped at the door and separated from one another. "Does she truly not have a valentine?" Joseph asked with all the suspicion of a man who was half-bodyguard, half-grandfather.

"Not that I know of. I believe she is planning, more accurately, an anti-Valentine's Day."

He grinned. "More like her grandmother every day."

Charlotte watched as excitement lifted the princess from her perch on the corner of her desk, her hands fluttering as she spoke.

"That's a great idea! Let me ask Grandma!"

Charlotte's amusement quickly changed to alarm. "Oh, Princess!" she said, her voice rising an almost imperceptible notch.

There was just enough urgency in her tone to catch Mia before she reached the door. She skidded to a halt, and her expression showed she recognized her near faux-pas. "Ooh, that's right!" she said, lowering her voice. "No barging in on 'security meetings.'" She crooked her fingers to put quotation marks around security meetings, and Charlotte had to stifle a laugh.

Just then, the door opened, and Clarisse and Joseph emerged.

"Charlotte," Clarisse said breezily, "I am going to walk through the guest wing with Joseph. I won't be gone long."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Mia, do you think you can occupy yourself for a short while?"

"I do, but Grandma," Mia hurried to interject, her eyes wide with an almost believable innocence, "is this about arrangements for the guests staying after the dinner? Should I be in on this?"

Charlotte and Joseph looked at Clarisse, waiting to hear what she would say to put off her successor. "No," she said simply.

"Oh, okay." Simple worked.

"Please, try to stay out of trouble," Clarisse threw over her shoulder as she and Joseph disappeared around the corner.

"You, too, Grandma," Mia muttered for Charlotte's ears only. She turned to face her. "She knows no one's buying that, right?"

For once, Charlotte allowed her strict adherence to propriety slip. "To be honest, I don't think she cares."

Mia grinned. "Good for Grandma."

Then they allowed the pretense to settle back into place, and picked up where they had left off in their holiday plans.

The End!